However I’ve had a lot of emails, tweets and comments from readers who have been confused by this article from the Daily Mail which claimed – incorrectly, as it turned out – that the channel could be made available for £10 per month, i.e. £120 per year. Let me stress that this deal does not exist.

In order to put the matter beyond doubt I put the question to Sky via their customer help feature, which confirmed the cheapest way to view the channel on your TV is £363 per year. I have pasted the transcript below.

Here’s the transcript of my chat with Sky. It looks like they were pushing me towards the dearer option to begin with – the Sky Sports package, costing around £600 per year – before describing the other deal for the channel.

Almost every single post I have seen that you have made has pointed out how much it costs (posts referring to sky coverage). It’s not that expensive. If I can manage a £44p/m sky bill on a job that pays £12k a year, I’m pretty sure most other people can as well.

They should either take it or leave it and they should quit moaning litle little girls.

Keith, a couple of weeks ago there was a post about using Sky Go monthly to access the F1 channel. Someone had posted info on how to do this the cheapest way possible (i.e. only buying the monthly ticket for those months when there was no BBC race). I can’t seem to find it now, though. Do you remember where the post is? Cheers!

Depends on your priorities I guess. I’m lucky in a way as we already have Sky with the HD package. But if I’d have had to get Sports (~£240) to watch F1 then it would have been a toss up between watching each race live on TV or going to Silverstone for the British GP. I wouldn’t be able to afford both.

@cubejam I think it’s a very poor deal made worse by the confusing structure and Sky’s breathtaking cynicism.

I asked them about subscribing to one channel and they offered to sell me 240 of them. That’s downright insulting.

They force you to subscribe for 12 months when you only want nine. And they have the gall to keep referring to essential parts of your service (like the receiver box) as “free” when you’re paying £363 per year.

The circumstances of the arrangement with the BBC make it even worse. People are already getting half the races live and in HD for free (TV licence notwithstanding), but then have to pay £36.30 each for the other ten.

There will be people who say “but you get so much other stuff” – that’s besides the point. People don’t necessarily want the other stuff. If Sky ran a supermarket they’d be selling loaves of bread for £20 with 100 “free” tins of spam.

So I don’t agree with you – I think it’s a lousy deal and I can well understand why people are unhappy about it. Not least considering that there were other free-to-air broadcasters, such as Channel 4, interested in taking up the rights, but it appears to BBC’s decision to go straight to Sky left them out of the picture.

OK, so lets assume that I am a Virgin HD customer, I can already get the Sky Sports pack through virgin at an increased cost (but dont), ignoring my current monthly (minimum) payment, will I be able to just buy the Skysports F1 channel?

It may be possible to have a rolling contract if you were a previous Sky subscriber:

Sky: Hi. Welcome to Sky, home of HD. You’re chatting to Sky. Can I take your name please?
You: Hi, My name is Stephen
Sky: Hello Stephen, How are you doing today?
You: I’m thinking of coming back to Sky but I don’t want to be tied into a 12 month contract. Would this be possible?
Sky: I’m Afraid it will be a 12 months contract for everyone
Sky: Have you subscribed to Sky within the last 12 months?
You: Yes
Sky: In this case you can call our customer service team on 08442 414141 and Reinitiate your old account and may be you can go for monthly subscription without contract
You: Ok, Thank you

I have BT vision, their sky package inc F1 channel is £18 per month on top of my subcription, but you only have to have it for as many months as you want, and are not tied into it out of season. However, I am sorely tempted to spend the £18 on going to the pub for a nice Sunday dinner and a pint and watching it there.
The trouble is, when I go to the Sky site to see what the contenet will be on the F1 channel, I don’t get many answers. If it just the same old stuff repeated over and over, I don’t really want to bother. I only want the F1 channel, and not the rest of the sports stuff, does anyone lknow if you can buy this on it’s own for the computer or ipad?